Two blocks from the Mexican borderhttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/two-blocks-from-the-mexican-border
The author watches migrants run across the border from her home in Naco, Ariz.Every weekend at daybreak, the neighborhood dogs begin to bark. I open my blinds to see what’s up, and it’s almost always the same: a Mexican teenager in a dark hoodie running down the abandoned railroad track followed by several others just like him, spaced every few minutes.

Sometimes they’re barefoot. They disappear into a mesquite wash and wait until a vehicle with tinted windows pulls over and picks them up, if the Border Patrol on foot, ATVs or horseback doesn’t spot them first.

I live two blocks from the border in the small village of Naco, Ariz., and can see the wall from my minute patch of desert. When I first visited Naco over 30 years ago, the village was half in the United States and half in Mexico. You could walk freely from country to country. Now the wall -- and sometimes a double wall -- separates neighbors and families.

The migrant passage has also changed. It used to be that most Mexicans crossed on their own. Now, I’m told, few attempt to cross except under cartel control. Migrants go to an assigned person in their village, usually a woman, and tell her they want to cross. The average fee is $5,000, a small fortune for one who works weekly for $75. The woman makes contact with the cartel and their journey begins.

Some parts of the trip may be by air, bus or vehicle, but the unavoidable walk to the wall and La Frontera beyond is always dangerous. Some are forced to carry drugs, others left to die by the coyotes paid to lead them. A young woman who makes the trip begins to take birth control a month before she departs -- rape is often part of her journey. Trails crisscross the desert where “trophy trees” are adorned with a victim’s underwear.

At popular crossings, thousands of empty plastic water bottles pile up at the base of the wall. Garbage bags secured with rope and hung in bushes nearby provide protection from the sun until the word is given to move.

I recently travelled across the border with a nonprofit group called Humanitarian Border Solutions. Volunteers hand out food packs and clean and fill water barrels for the migrants; blue flags fly high above the blue plastic barrels to mark the spots. The volunteers cross the border weekly, all year long, in a beat-up truck that’s just about worn out. Eight hundred life-saving gallons of water were consumed last month, and it isn’t even summer. The group’s dusty, rough route brings them into contact with the Mexican army, cartel gangsters, coyotes who lead groups across, U.S. Border Patrol and the migrants themselves. The volunteers maintain neutrality and don’t ask questions. I, on the other hand, ask.

In reply, I am told that three cartels control operations along this short expanse of border. I visit a staging area, a shack where the migrants gather, sleep on the dirt floor and wait. The fireplace is a 50-gallon drum; tortillas are warmed on top. One nearby field is designated for migrant crossings, another is designated for drug running. There is no crossover between fields.

The cartels have informants on the U.S. side and use radios, binoculars and simple equipment like dental mirrors woven with wire into the border fence to keep watch on the Border Patrol. They’ve even welded camouflage steps on one side of the fence, made from the same material as the fence itself. Once, when the water truck broke down, a man with a gun and a cellphone approached, made a phone call, and shortly thereafter a shiny, unmarked red pickup with every tool imaginable showed up to help. No questions asked.

A three-foot shrine to Santa Muerte, the patron saint of death, sits near the staging area. Inside the concrete enclosure stands a grim reaper-like statue surrounded by candles. A prayer adorns the door: “You know well Beloved Death … the danger of my path … be at my side … keep danger and threats from me … that the eye of my opposition will not see my footprints. …"

The coyotes who take migrants over the border are called polleros, the migrants pollitos, chicken handlers and little chicks. That’s true enough. The young boys I watch at dawn scatter like chicks down the railroad bed. My friend joins me outside for coffee. She calls out, “Buena suerte,” good luck. A young boy uncharacteristically turns his head, makes eye contact and replies, “Gracias,” without missing a beat.

Christina Nealson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She is usually on the move, travelling the West, and her latest book is Drive Me Wild: A Western Odyssey.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesWriters on the Range2013/06/04 05:00:00 GMT-6ArticleWhat do you do when you meet a predator?http://www.hcn.org/wotr/what-do-you-do-when-you-meet-a-predator
On encountering lions and grizzlies--and their families--in the wild The March day in western Colorado was crystalline clear. North-facing mountain slopes held up to a foot of snow; the south faces, however, were bare. I made my way up a favorite isolated mountain valley along a stream of beaver ponds. I saw no beaver, but I did see a small mountain lion track. It’s a common experience: My cougar sightings have all occurred close to beaver activity. I stopped to rest on a log in the sun as a raven checked me out from on high, and a flock of chirpy cedar waxwings worked the aspen catkins. The air brimmed with the exhilaration of spring. When I decided to go higher, the wind was in my favor; perhaps I’d see an elk.

I rounded the high overlook and continued a few steps when I suddenly noticed that the hair on the back of my dog’s neck stood on end. I peered into the valley below and saw nothing. Then I followed Teak’s eyes. Thirty yards directly below us was a mountain lion.

I watched as the lion, intent on putting distance between the dog and me, leapt a small stream and disappeared into the thick forest, tangled with downed debris. Then, another lion appeared. It, too, walked the bank of the stream, jumped over it and disappeared. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I stood spellbound when danged if a third lion didn’t come into view. Within a few seconds, after this one disappeared, the mother finally appeared, dwarfing her yearlings, which, until that moment, had seemed huge.

She was magnificent. Having assured the triplets’ safety, the lion strode upstream about 10 yards and climbed onto a trunk snag that bridged the stream. She was halfway across when she looked back at me, let loose with a tremendous snarl revealing razor-sharp canines, and sprang to the other side as if propelled by the thickness of her powerful tail.

My body, frozen in awe, eventually relaxed, as my breath returned. I moved up a few yards and looked back on the spot where the family had been. It was a dry, south-facing slope, hidden under a slight rock overhang. I imagine that they were lazing in the spring sun, relaxing in these quiet weeks before the backcountry opened up to throngs of hikers. I would have missed it all had it not been for Teak’s keen nose and our good luck in being downwind.

To witness the wild is to step into an extraordinary space. I wonder why that mother didn’t feel threatened by either the dog or me, and act on her fear by charging us. My response to our encounter was just as surprising: Avid photographer that I am, I never thought to reach for my camera. I simply watched in fascination as my body received information that lay far beyond the reach of my conscious brain. That is why I didn’t flee; I stood my ground and sent out whatever nonthreatening and nonverbal vibes take over at a time like that.

I had a similar experience once above timberline in the Canadian Rockies when I met a mother grizzly and her three cubs, I rounded a corner and there they were, moseying across the mountainside, turning over huge rocks in search of insects. I grabbed the dog and stood still, watching, until the mother noticed me. She could have been on me in a nano-second. Above timberline, there was no place to run, no trees to climb. I directed every drop of energy I had toward her presence, trying to communicate the fact that I meant no harm. She looked at me, stuck her nose into the air, and, as if by magic, her cubs gathered around her. They all stood still for a moment, then turned on a dime and headed down the mountain, the three cubs following like the tail on a kite. A few moments later, they reappeared on a mountainside farther away.

I want to find meaning in these encounters that left me breathless and yet unharmed. Even though lions and bears are fierce predators, when they noticed me watching them, they suddenly seemed vulnerable and alone. I was privileged to see those two mothers make the wiser choice, protecting their young not by confrontation but by their decision to move on. I, too, was able to walk away, deeply humbled by the experience. I knew that I was the intruder, forcing wild animals on their own wild turf to react to me. The imperative of wilderness weighs heavily on us all.

Christina Nealson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She is on the road promoting her latest book, Drive Me Wild: A Western Odyssey.

]]>No publisherWildlifeWriters on the Range2013/03/26 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleGuns are different for women in the Westhttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/guns-are-different-for-women-in-the-west
As a woman, I believe I am safer with a gun in the West.“In Montana, women go around with a baby bottle in one hand and a gun in the other,” quipped a man recently as he sat at the bar in Happy’s Road House, outside of Libby.

Unlike the rural Montana women to whom he referred, my introduction to guns didn’t come about because I was surrounded by an avid hunting culture. My experience began in Tucson with phone calls that terrorized me in the middle of the night, coming from a whack-o stranger who threatened me and my 10-year old-daughter. Realizing that self-defense classes would pale against a lunatic, and faced with a police department geared to response and not prevention, I headed to a gun range in the name of protecting myself.

I remember that class over 30 years ago as if it just happened. I’d never touched a gun before. I was a liberal who abhorred violence. I picked up the handgun with sweaty hands and took a deep breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger. It felt like an eternity until the blast. I flinched at the recoil, let my breath go and felt the most amazing wave of power and elation.

All doubts were gone: I was a single parent who could and would protect my daughter. I didn’t have to get close to fight off an intruder who might overpower me. This metal between my hands was the equalizer that made self-defense possible.

Recently, we’ve all seen horrendous gun events, from Anders Breivik mowing down innocent children on an island off Norway (where guns are illegal) to James Holmes who opened fire in a Denver theatre, and the horrendous killing of 20 first-graders and six adults in a school in Newtown, Conn. Every time there’s a massacre, there’s a call to tighten handgun restrictions.

Convicted felons and those with mental health records should be banned from purchasing firearms. Background checks should be thorough. But we know that these necessary safeguards still won’t protect the innocent from an armed assailant’s intent to harm. Bottom-line: The gun issue is different for women.

According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a woman is sexually assaulted every two minutes in the United States. That’s 207,754 a year. While many women opt for protection in the form of Tasers, pepper spray and knives -- and bear spray around here -- all of these are dependent on staying close to the attacker. You can fire a gun, however, without getting close.

After that fateful day in Tucson, I obtained handgun certification and taught basic pistol for women and a two-day class called “Personal Defense in the Home.” Women, after all, are the keepers of the hearth and home, and around here that includes protection as well as bringing home the bacon, er venison.

As a Western woman who has lived for years solo in the wilderness and likes to travel the back roads alone, a gun has become my indispensable tool. I’ve shot rounds in the air to chase off bears. When I’ve lost my way, I’ve fired the universal 3-burst distress signal, and I once warned off a threatening male who showed up uninvited at my cabin door in the middle of the night, miles away from police protection.

But most important is the mindset of a woman who knows she can protect herself and her family, thanks to owning a gun and knowing how to use it. A confident attitude is everything, and not only when a direct threat requires an instant, skilled response. Projecting confidence can keep potential threats at bay.

Rapists in prison, the subject of myriad studies, state that when they search for victims they choose a woman who is not paying attention, the easy mark who walks without confidence. I think also of the women on the streets texting or jabbering away on their cell phones, oblivious to their surroundings. I think of the statistic that 80 percent of sexual assaults are against women under 30.

I walk an independent line -- staunchly pro-life in the way the words intend. It’s my body and it’s my decision how to live, whether the question is birth control, pregnancy or self-defense, a baby bottle or morning-after pill in one hand, and a gun in the other.

Christina Nealson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She presently travels the back roads of the West from Taos, New Mexico; her latest book is Drive Me Wild: A Western Odyssey.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesWriters on the Range2013/01/22 01:00:00 GMT-6ArticleThe truth about wolves is hard to findhttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/the-truth-about-wolves-is-hard-to-find
Some hunters claim wolves are killing too many deer and elk in northwestern Montana, but the facts indicate otherwise -- although those facts are easily lost in all the emotional rhetoric.I spent this winter in northwestern Montana close to the border of Idaho's Panhandle, a place well known for its dense population of wolves. To hear hunters tell it, I should have seen a deer or elk skeleton every few feet on the forest floor and a lurking wolf behind every tree. Game numbers have plummeted, they claim, as they affix stickers that say "SSS" -- which stands for "Shoot, Shovel, and Shut-up" -- on pickups, and don baseball caps that urge, "Smoke a Pack a Day." And they're not talking about cigarettes.

I own guns. I support hunting, and the elk and deer meat from these forests is luscious. An avid naturalist, I've walked, skied and driven hundreds of miles over these mountains for eight months, including every day during bow and rifle season.

Yet it took three months before I spotted wolf tracks and scat. It was in November, the final week of rifle season. Three months later, I saw my first wolf. Wolf sign did not become common until late winter mating season, when scat and blood-laced urine appeared twice in one week in the high country along creek drainages.

What I saw on the ground never matched the stories I heard or read about in the newspapers, which blamed wolves for killing off the game. My experience came closer to the claim of Kent Laudon, a Fish, Wildlife and Parks wolf biologist, who estimates that there's one wolf for every 39 square miles of game terrain in the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks' Region One in northwestern Montana. He estimates the average pack size at 6.7 animals.

Coming from Colorado, a state that manages elk herds with sharpshooters and silencers, I was unprepared for the vitriol toward wolves in northwestern Montana. When I listened to hunters gathered around camo-decorated crock pots, they seemed to enjoy trashing these animals. One line of attack went like this: "If we can't eat game, we'll be forced to move to town. It's rural cleansing. Next, they'll take away our guns."

Hunting guides complained that out-of-state clients were reluctant to come to wolf-infested woods. Some taxidermists said they had lost business, while ranchers claimed that wolf packs threatened their livelihoods. Yet the figures show that only 97 cows were killed by wolves in Montana in 2009. During that year, government statistics showed that 2.6 million cattle, including calves, lived in the state; therefore, the percentage of cattle killed by wolves was only 0.004 percent.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks cites a 15 percent increase in the wolf population from 2010 to 2011, to around 653, as the justification for increasing the quota for the 2012 wolf hunt. However, according to Jay Mallonee, a wolf researcher and scientist for "Friends of Animals," both figures are incorrect and impossible to substantiate (Nature and Science Magazine: wolfandwildlifestudies.com/downloads/natureandscience.pdf).

By its own admission, Montana's wildlife agency has oversold doe tags in the past. Laudon confirms that while a few deer herds are down in numbers, other herds are stable or increasing. A predation study is currently under way at the University of Montana. Early reports point to mountain lions, which are three times more numerous than wolves, according to Laudon, as the primary cause of elk calf deaths. Meanwhile, the state uses anecdotal sightings to help it determine wolf counts.

This May, wildlife commissioners will consider their options for the 2012- '13 wolf season and make a final decision in July. Will wolf kills be determined by the bully pulpit and defined by how many deer and elk show up in people's backyards? Or will the commissioners consider a combination of factors and try to balance game-tag distribution, hunting pressure and poaching, game counts, herd movements and natural deaths?

Restoring wolves to Montana has changed everything, and that takes some getting used to. Wolf packs have sharpened the wits of the ungulates, forcing them to alter the way they move through the forest. Hunters now have to deal with game that no longer behaves in traditional ways. Meanwhile, the anti-wolf contingent batters the public with relentless horror stories about wolves, hoping to convince people that all the game has disappeared. Of course, that is not true, but is anybody getting the facts behind the rhetoric?

Christina Nealson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She is a writer in Libby, Montana.

]]>No publisherWildlifeWriters on the Range2012/04/26 13:15:00 GMT-6ArticleThis is a winter of snowy owlshttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/this-is-a-winter-of-snowy-owls
Big, beautiful snowy owls are showing up far outside their usual range, much to the delight of Western birdwatchers.It took only two hours for me to reach the apparent miracle that was occurring near Flathead Lake in Polson, Mont.: Snowy owls had turned up here after flying all the way from the Arctic, and everybody in the town of about 4,000 seemed to know about it.

I'd never seen these spectacular, two-foot-tall birds, which can boast a wingspan of up to five feet, but I'd always wanted to, and here was my chance. A fellow birder pointed the way, and suddenly, there they were, looking like ghost owls assembled on the subdivision rooftops.

Twelve white sentinels broke the skyline like fluffy chimneys, their unlikely perch points on sunny shingles commanding a 360-degree view. There was the expansive Flathead Lake to the north and tundra-like hunting fields below. The birds' beauty and foreign presence were breathtaking.

When a bevy of birds flies far south like this it's called an "irruption," a sudden, unpredictable mass movement of individuals into an area where they're uncommon. The last irruption of snowy owls to Polson occurred in 2005-'06; that time they wintered about a mile from this subdivision, laying claim to fence posts and old farm machinery.

Irruptions are usually regional, occurring in the Northwestern United States, the Northeast, or in areas of British Columbia, but this year has been unprecedented. Thousands of owls have detoured south from coast to coast; they've been seen in Seattle, Vancouver, Kansas, the Ohio River Valley, Boston, South Dakota, and even in the fields north of Denver International Airport.

This migration is exciting the nation, as people who don't usually travel to see birds load up the children and drive miles to see the majestic white owls. One man told me, "I'm a bow-hunter not a birdwatcher, but I wanted to see these birds with my boy." Here's a thought: It's the rare child who isn't familiar with Harry Potter's own snowy owl, Hedwig.

A few miles south of Polson, in the Mission Valley, is the small but mighty Ninepipes Owl Research Institute, home to Denver Holt, a man who has studied snowy owls for over 25 years. Some scientists believe this irruption was caused by a crash in the lemming population -- lemmings constitute 90 percent of the snowy owls' diet. But others believe that the opposite is true: that an overpopulation of lemmings resulted in too many owls --five to seven owlets hatching at once as opposed to the usual zero to two -- and that the resulting overpopulation pushed the birds out of the Arctic in search of winter food supplies.

"It's all speculation," says Holt. "No one knows that the lemming population crashed. We do know they (owls) are showing up healthy, not stressed and uninjured. Holt believes that good feeding leads to good breeding, and between the lake and the tundra-like fields, the birds above Polson have a ready supply of mice, voles, ducks, hares and fish. And, I would think, the occasional housecat.

The birds this day were roosting in the sun on patches of crusty roof snow. They are one of the few diurnal owls, active in the day, and the largest owl by weight, with the female adult weighing up to six pounds. A hunting bird can reach speeds of 69 mph; a female defending her chicks will launch like a stealth bomber from a half-mile away and strike at 25 mph, tearing through cotton layers and down jackets and into flesh with ease. Wolves don't faze them. Oglala Sioux warriors who excelled in battle wore caps of snowy owl feathers.

The owls appear in cave art from 10,000 years ago, and you could say that they continue to live on in the deep recesses of our reptilian brain. Their ghostly white feathers may have something to do with our fascination, as white symbolizes innocence, purity, spiritual power - and, in some cultures, death. Depending on where you go in their polar world, the bird is known as the ermine owl, tundra ghost, Scandinavian night bird, white terror of the North or Ookpik.

Denver Holt says the scope of this nationwide irruption makes it the greatest wildlife event in many years. After the birds showed up in 1966, he recalls, you couldn't walk into a farmhouse without seeing a snowy owl - dead and stuffed. Now, people vie to be part of the mystery, capturing the owls not with guns, but with eyes and cameras. As for the owls I watched in Polson, the birds always seemed to be scanning the fields beyond, their dazzling yellow eyes never missing a move. I count my blessings that I got to be in their presence.

Christina Nealson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She lives and writes in Libby, Montana.

]]>No publisherWildlifeWriters on the Range2012/02/23 02:00:00 GMT-6ArticleRight on, Target!http://www.hcn.org/wotr/right-on-target
A 13-pound wild turkey in Colorado gets by despite the six inches of arrow protruding from either side of her breast.I figure she weighs about 13 pounds, minus the arrow that pierces her breast and protrudes six inches from either side of her body. Someone missed a clean kill during turkey season this fall. He or she loaded an arrow with a yellow feather, pulled the bow taut and let it rip. Which it did, but not quite as intended. The hen miraculously escaped stuffing, roasting and carving on a Thanksgiving platter, and lived not only to see another day but also to become a bit of a legend, here in southern Colorado's Mancos River Valley.

Aptly named "Target" by the local ranchers, the turkey continues to scour the riverside for seeds, acorns, tubers and insects. Turkeys are opportunistic omnivores, with a normal diet that's 90 percent plant and 10 percent lizards and the like. The birds generally prefer the cover of Gambel oak, piñon-juniper and ponderosa. But the flock of 80 that roams the fields east of Mesa Verde National Monument also likes the combination of open pastures and the cover of the river's edge.

There's been talk of trapping Target and removing the arrow. Many of us worried that she wouldn't be able to lift off the ground to roost at night in the tangled timber of old cottonwood trees along the river's edge. But she manages, somehow. I just took a drive down the road and saw her high up in a leafless cottonwood with a dozen other turkeys. She appears to live quite normally, despite the protruding arrow.

There are hundreds of wild turkeys in this 7,000-foot-high mountain valley. Turkeys were a staple of the pre-Columbian Native Americans who constructed the impressive cliff dwellings now protected by the Mesa Verde World Heritage Site. The Natives eventually domesticated the wild bird and used it for both utilitarian and ritual purposes: feather robes, blankets and arrow fletchings as well as prayer sticks and masks. Turkeys were raised for their feathers, meat, bone and eggs. Farther to the north, the Lakota used 28 turkey feathers for the headdress in their crowning ritual. The Hopi used four turkey feathers to symbolize the sacred four winds.

Observers report seeing turkey flocks numbering in the hundreds of thousands in the 18th and 19th centuries. It must have been an amazing site, akin to the vast flocks of now-extinct passenger pigeons that once darkened the sky. But hunting and loss of habitat contributed to their near extinction. Now, thanks to successful reintroduction programs, they're back: In Colorado, there were 3,000 turkeys in 1969; by 1999, there were 22,000. Nationwide, the population has grown to 6.4 million.

Contrary to legend, Ben Franklin didn't promote the wild turkey as the national symbol instead of the bald eagle. However, he did observe that "the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America."

A few years back, using binoculars, I spotted wild turkeys on a distant plateau. A tail-spread tom in rotund strut herded his harem of eight. They stepped and pecked their way from bush to tree as they worked their way out of my sight. Suddenly, a hen broke rank and ran to the edge of the cliff. Where was she going? It was a 100-yard drop -- a suicidal plunge. But no, she took flight. Flap. Flap. I thought: Turkeys can't do this! Sure, they flutter their way up to roost in trees, but they don't go launching themselves across 40-yard chasms. But flap, flap, the turkey flew ... right towards me! She swooped in like a para-glider and landed 10 feet away. I sat dumbfounded as we locked eyes and she took two leather-footed steps towards me.

Well, it turns out turkeys can do that. They can fly at 55 mph for up to one mile. Just as they can roost, graze, peck and swallow even with an arrow through the breast. This turkey that saunters along the banks of the Mancos River is nothing if not a metaphor. You see her, and you are stopped in your tracks at the miracle of her survival. You wonder if she isn't the perfect national symbol, after all -- for all of us in these troubled, perilous times as we make the best of life with a wounded heart.

Christina Nealson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She is a writer and naturalist in Mancos, Colorado.

]]>No publisherWildlifeWriters on the Range2010/12/23 01:00:00 GMT-6ArticleSpringtime in the Rockieshttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/springtime-in-the-rockies
The beautiful spring in Colorado's San Luis Valley is a bitter contrast to the tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.The Mancos Valley reverberates with the gush of its namesake river in an annual rite of spring runoff. These waters are a perfect metaphor for starting a new life -- allowing winter's rigidity to melt and wash away. In this high mountain ranching valley of Colorado, the first water flows through irrigation spigots and onto hay fields. The swallows return and rebuild their mud nests under the eaves of the barn; foals hug their mothers' sides under newly leafed cottonwoods. All is rejuvenation.

Meanwhile, there is the black, slimy gush filling the Gulf of Mexico –– a flood of oil so gargantuan it is difficult to wrap our minds around it until we go online or turn on the television. The video of Philippe Cousteau (grandson of Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau who brought the oceans into our living rooms on television) diving into the sullied Gulf waters makes even the toughest among us gasp. "It's a nightmare," he says, as he moves through suspended particles of oil and muck, a few large fish looking eerily out of place in the background.

Susan Shaw, a marine toxicologist and director of the marine Environmental Research Institute, took a dive recently as well. She described a, "surreal and sickening scene" as she passed through an orange-brown pudding mix of oil and dispersants. She witnessed phytoplankton, zooplankton and shrimp enveloped in dark oil, and larger fish feeding on the poisonous oil dispersal droplets, mistaking them for food.

At a time when the world is consumed with religious violence and the so-called war on terror, perhaps it's time to ask the creatures of the sea: "Who are the terrorists?" This is not a trick question.

As much as we want to dump the blame on some other, it is not simply the fault of British Petroleum Oil executives trying to save an extra day and making a bad decision to forego safety measures. It's not just because our government backed away from regulation. It's not due to Dick Cheney's secretive Energy Task Force, which apparently determined that the $500,000 shutoff switches (mandated in Norway and Brazil to prevent catastrophes like this one) were an economic burden on the industry and passed on requiring them in U.S. waters. As Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says, "We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness."

I look out at newly greened sage, the La Plata Mountains in the background, well aware that this nightmare has everything to do with our -- my -- addiction to oil. Through my consumptive habits, I enable the oil companies to keep racking up profits. Several years ago, I limited my plane flights to one a year and encouraged friends to do the same. "Oh, but I can't," they replied. "So and so" would be hurt if I didn't show up for their (fill in the blank: wedding, graduation, funeral, reunion). And of course, for us baby boomers: "I've got to see the grandkids!" topped the list.

But where will change start if not with us? Imagine a phone call to that niece, cousin or sister telling them that you won't be attending their gradation because of energy consumption; that it's imperative to switch gears and make choices on behalf of the earth. Take one plane trip a year and make it count. Or if your family is a top priority, move and live closer.

Close your eyes and imagine what Philippe Cousteau saw 25 feet down: clouds of granular water the likes of which researchers say now forms massive plumes hundreds of feet deep that stretches for miles. The pungent smell of diesel fuel, gasoline and oil. His hazmat and diving suit had to be degreased; his skin needed to be carefully cleaned because the touch of that water would cause it to burn.

From 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil or much, much more continue to pour into the ocean every day. No, says Philippe Cousteau, the ocean cannot take this. No, he says, a hurricane will not wash it all away and make it clean again. Unlike the Mancos River Valley, the Gulf has no rite of spring, no seasonal cleanup to scour the riverbanks.

It's rafting season here in the Four Corners region of the Southwest. Rafts made from petroleum products, petroleum tires under the car and gasoline to drive to the put-ins. Don't forget the poly-pro wet suits for warmth and those large, soft inflatable pads to sleep on. It's springtime in the Rockies, but for many creatures of the sea, it's a dark, sad time of death.

Christina Nealson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She writes from her home in Mancos, Colorado.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesWriters on the RangeEssays2010/06/10 10:42:38 GMT-6ArticleGarbage grows well on the borderhttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/garbage-grows-well-on-the-border
The many thousands of illegal immigrants who pass through Arizona border towns are leaving tons of litter in their wake.Another couple of steps, and it would have hit the jogger in the head. A thick nylon rope sailed over the wall separating Arizona from Mexico as if it had wings. A white lifeline with a knot at the end, it hung from the top and dangled to within three feet of the ground. I watched the stunned runner stop short and rein in his dog as a blue-jeaned man topped the wall, slid down the rope and gave new meaning to "hit the ground running." He headed north across the highway towards the cover of desert scrub as another man followed, and then another -- four in all.

Just as quickly, with a series of jerks, the rope disappeared back into Mexico. The witness continued his noonday jog within sight of the border crossing, where the Stars and Stripes and Mexico's bold red and green flag waved side by side in the breezes of spring.

This recently happened in Naco, a small town split in two by the ugliest wall you could ever imagine. Twenty years ago, when I first visited Naco, I strolled over the border with hardly an official glance to buy fresh frozen pineapple bars from a friendly vendor on the street. Although it spanned two countries, Naco was one village where neighbors and families easily mixed. Now, I cross the border with passport in hand to enter a Mexican town that thrives through the business of illegal migration. Hostels called hospedajes have sprouted like weeds. Cheap day packs decorated with the likes of Pokemon hang from street stalls next to black T-shirts, an a draw those who plan to scale the wall at nightfall.

Naco, Ariz., is also prospering. Old houses sprout roomy additions and fancy windows. Vacant lots boast new double wides and shiny SUVs with heavily tinted windows roll through this dusty town of 900 people. Friends who run the migrant center across the border tell me the going price is $400 a pop to transport a "UDA" -- an undocumented alien -- from Naco to Tucson.

I visit the ecologically rich borderlands every spring. I come to see the thousands of sand hill cranes that winter at nearby Whitewater Draw, as well as rarities like the resplendent green kingfisher in the bosque of the San Pedro River. A vital migratory corridor, the cottonwood-lined river spans the border, flowing surprisingly south to north. It's easy to feel the changes here from one year to the next. In years past, my daydreams were rudely interrupted by the screech of peacocks running free up the road. Now,the flamboyant birds are all but silent, replaced by coyote yips and howls. They explode into chorus day and night as if advertising for their two-legged counterparts who move brown humanity across the border to the E l Norte. The four-legged coyotes lope down the deserted railroad bed a few feet away in broad daylight. The most brazen ones seem to have taken over the town, probably drawn by the piles of migrant trash strewn across the land.

No one can walk the borderlands without seeing the detritus of flight. Whether in the low-lying deserts or atop the mountainous sky islands, I am likely to stumble across debris areas called "layups" that range up to 100 yards long. I've read of arroyos where you can walk half a mile on strewn jackets, diapers, tampons and jettisoned medicines.

The Bureau of Land Management estimates that eight pounds of trash are dropped here per day per person. Figure 870 arrests a day in the 262-mile-wide Tucson sector, and you've got approximately 7,000 pounds of trash every 24 hours. But only one in three persons is caught, so actually the number is closer to 21,000 pounds per day. It certainly feels like 21,000 people have crossed the landscape and left their litter behind.

There's no hard research on the effects of border trash on wildlife. At best it's an insult to the earth. At its most serious it affects the desert tortoises that live in desert washes as well as the four-legged animals and birds that are drawn to the potentially dangerous leftovers. In 2003, the BLM instituted the Southern Arizona Project to remedy some of the environmental damage. The BLM has given $5 million to private and government groups for projects that include trash collection. The groups pick up 230,000 pounds a year.

Activity around little Naco intensifies. Like the San Pedro River, the stream of garbage intensifies from south to north. As for the wall, there are always taller ladders, deeper tunnels and thick nylon ropes. Meanwhile, the coyotes -- both kinds -- run at will, ignoring the rest of us.

Christina Nealson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She calls Mancos, Colorado, home as she travels the West, pen and camera in hand

]]>No publisherClimate ChangeWriters on the RangeEssays2009/04/30 07:00:00 GMT-6ArticleRhubarb: It tastes like springhttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/17074
Christina Nealson scours her small town’s alleyways,
looking for rhubarb with a recipe in hand.One cup
flour. Spring tulips splashed across yards as I morphed
into an alley-cruising backyard spy, desperate to find a rhubarb
patch. I'd all but given up when I spied a plot of the familiar
elephant ear leaves.

Three-quarter cup uncooked
oatmeal (not instant.) Ding-dong. A skinny boomer in
shorts answered the door, as I explained and beseeched. May I
please pick some rhubarb? He wasn't too sure, since his
mother-in-law had mentioned a desire to come by and get some. I was
in competitive territory. I quickly pointed out the huge pod that
towered above the leaves: It was going to seed and must be picked!
Sure, he smiled, there's more than enough.

One
cup brown sugar. So it was I who pulled pink, tender
stalks from the ground and carried them a few blocks down the
streets of Mancos, a town in southern Colorado, as if they were
gold. I cut off the cupped, creamy white bottoms, topped off the
fanned leaves, and set to chopping.

One-half cup
melted butter. Rhubarb is a spring ritual for this
Iowa-grown girl. Called "pie plant" by country folk, it's the first
fruit (though a vegetable) of the season, cousin to sorrel. I'd
already made rhubarb-blueberry pie (with a large pinch of red chili
powder) for Easter. The crisp rhubarb came from a grocery store,
though. It's not the same unless I tug it from the ground.

One teaspoon cinnamon. Once I'd
chopped four cups of rhubarb, I called my mother back in Iowa. She
picked up. She always does, and she's almost 90 years old. I often
wonder what it will be like after she and my father have vacated
their earthly home -- when I can no longer dial the number that
never fails to answer. I asked mom about freezing rhubarb. Yes, she
assured, it freezes well. Did she ever make anything besides
rhubarb sauce, pie or crisp? Aunt Clara used to make rhubarb jam,
she reminded me. She put Jello-o in it.

One-quarter teaspoon salt. Mix the flour, oatmeal, brown
sugar, butter, cinnamon and salt together in a bowl until crumbly.
Put half of the mixture into a 9 X 9 baking dish. Even it out so
it's slightly flat but don't pack it down. Place 4 cups rhubarb,
sliced half-inch thin, over the bottom crust.

One cup white sugar. Whatever you do with
rhubarb, sugar will be a main ingredient. I can't believe I raided
the rhubarb patch when I was a kid and ate a stalk or two. A great
cleansing tonic, it's bitter and stringy when bitten fresh.

Two tablespoons cornstarch. A few
weeks ago, an article on rhubarb appeared in the New York Times
Magazine. Finally, my favorite, rosy-stalked dishes would get the
coverage they deserved. Alas, the shiny pages were devoted to the
likes of "black bass with silky rhubarb sauce" and "crisp rhubarb
in a sweet broth" that included a cardamom pod, white wine and Earl
Grey tea. I was a long way from the farm.

One
cup cool water. Ingredients assembled but lacking brown
sugar, I grabbed some change and took off on foot for the small
grocery store on the opposite end of town. The drone of a mower and
sweet lilacs on air joined me in my pilgrimage of spring, until,
back in the kitchen, Rosalie Sorrel's voice filled the kitchen as I
diced, mixed and poured.

One teaspoon each,
vanilla and grated orange peel. Mix white sugar, cornstarch, water,
vanilla and peel in a small saucepan and bring them to a boil,
stirring constantly. When the sauce is thick, smooth and clear,
right about the time it boils, remove from heat and pour it over
the rhubarb. Sprinkle the rest of the crumbly mixture over the top.
Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

Pieces of
rhubarb were strewn across the floor, oatmeal flakes littered the
top of the stove. I prepared the espresso pot so it would be ready
to brew when the timer went off, when I would bend, potholder in
hand, to the bubbling blend called Rhubarb Crisp.

It's an
indisputable fact: Hot desserts are made to be shared. Once sampled
and savored, I scooped up a bowl and headed to neighbor John's. I
figured he could use a break after hours on his knees, grouting his
new tile floor. He stood and took a warm bite. His bushy, gray
eyebrows rose. "Wow," he said, "It tastes like spring."

Christina Nealson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). She writes from her motor
home in Mancos, Colorado, and her latest book is called MotorHome
Zen.]]>No publisherCommunitiesWriters on the RangeEssaysArticleIn wilderness, don't phone homehttp://www.hcn.org/issues/136/4399
Hikers who bring their cell phones into the wilderness,
either for ease of rescue or instant access to the rest of the
world, are missing the point of wilderness.A man recently fell and broke his leg while hiking in the wilderness area above Boulder, Colo. While I wondered aloud how anyone could meet this fate in such a well-worn area, it was his rescue that piqued my attention. The lost hiker carried a cell phone and a hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS), a precision electronic navigation aid that locks onto orbiting satellites and calculates your exact position and movement.

He called 911, gave them his exact coordinates, and rescue was fast and efficient.

Yes, things are a changin' in the Wild West. A study by Duracell Battery finds that 38 percent of vacationers now pack a cell phone or pager. Eighteen percent bring along a notebook personal computer or electronic personal organizer.

On a recent hike into the high country, a friend of mine pulled out his cell phone at 13,000 feet, sat on the edge of a stunningly beautiful rock precipice and dialed his wife two states away. I didn't know that he had taken the phone, and was immediately torn by strong, opposing opinions. On one hand, the romance of it all. I mean, what woman wouldn't love to hear her lover's voice from a mountain top? To know that amid such beauty he was thinking of her? But the pit in my stomach told me that deeper feelings prevailed; feelings that had to do with the cell phone's immediate transformation of the wilderness.

I go to wilderness to leave linear time behind. I also leave behind the world of instant access, where phones, e-mail, cars and airplanes provide fast contact with anyone in the world. It is a step from the planned, organized, domesticated world into the realm of the unexpected. Whether a meadow of mariposa lilies or a sudden lightning storm at tree line, the beautiful and dangerous surprises of wilderness keep me well-honed. I must plan carefully. I must be aware of changes in wind and weather.

A cell phone changes all of this. Suddenly, I don't have to be responsible for poor planning, silly mistakes or bad luck. Like the hiker who broke his leg, I don't even have to take a map if I have my toys. In today's world, rescue teams with helicopters wait to save me from myself.

Colorado has approximately 3 million acres of wilderness and multitudinous millions of acres of national forest. Like its neighbors, much of its land is public. Public lands are, in fact, the partial definition of the West. For years, people have come to the forests and filled darkness with Coleman lanterns. Then, they filled silence with ghetto blasters. And now, they fill solitude with instant access to the technological world.

Next week, I'm riding my horse into the wilderness to camp alone for a few days. I'll pack a .357 on my hip. Three shots, three whistles, three of any noise is a distress signal. This is closer to the West I came to live in 20 years ago. A place where danger and beauty coincide, where I am part of the food chain, vulnerable to weather changes, dependent upon instinct. A place where personal responsibility gets the utmost test.

Yes, part of my gear will be a space-age fabric, lightweight tent. I will take a down jacket for warmth, and a small cooking stove. I do not wax negative on the products of technology. But somehow, my gut tells me that we've crossed the line with cell phones in wilderness.

It's about taking chances. In today's sanitized world we've minimized risk so much that the psyche deadens, and violence becomes more and more perverse. There's a reason why old cultures ritualized violence. The psyche and soul need tests. This is why rodeo still lives in the West, why cowboys still brave the elements with their stock across miles of dangerous terrain, and people leave the safety of their homes with a pack on their back and head into the mountains.

Phones and computers change the wilderness as much as forbidden roads and chainsaws. Perhaps more.

Christina Nealson is author of Living On The Spine: A Woman's Life in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains; Papier-Mache Press, 1997. She is a regular contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News.